Dangerous liaisons

Is there really any place for polygamy in English law, as a leading Muslim figure recently argued?

Hat tip Weasel Zippers

• Rosa Freedman/guardian.co.uk, 

Article history

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Mail Online

Islamic court cleared to deal with family and divorce disputes as Government endorses sharia

By Steve Doughty

   

Islamic courts will be able to decide how a Muslim couple divide their money and property and who gets the children. Islamic courts have been cleared to deal with family and divorce disputes. 

* Britain: Spies Like Us

Last week, Britain’s Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith,announced plans for a central database detailing every email sent, website visited, and phone call made within Britain. 

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Britain’s highest court allows a Lebanese woman to stay in Britain rather than lose her son. But they stress that only ‘flagrant’ human rights breaches will come within the law.

* Won’t be long before Muslims whine about “double standards..”

U.K.’s highest court: Sharia law is “arbitrary and discriminatory”

The case at hand concerns a woman who would have her child taken away from her under sharia law if she were to be repatriated to Lebanon. It is, of course, highly ironic that Britain itself has now imported the same set of issues into its own legal system by allowing rulings in domestic sharia courts to be legally binding. It may not be long before the high court must take up sharia rulings within the U.K. — an unfortunate and costly eventuality.

“Law lords say sharia is ‘arbitrary and discriminatory’,” by Joshua Rozenburg for the Telegraph, via DW

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*  The Islamization/Arabization of Indonesia continues:

Bucktooth Bashir sends his regards:

The tactic at work here is a familiar one, with the law’s proponents advancing a specific agenda under the cloak of an appeal to various “common values.” We’ve seen this before with respect to concepts like “human rights,” “respect for women,” and “respect for religion.” But in this case, a significant number of people aren’t buying it. “Indonesia, sharia behind anti-pornography law,” by Mattias Hariyadi for AsiaNews, September 17 thanks to JW:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - There is no let-up in the chorus of protests from Indonesian religious minorities and ethnic groups, against the possible approval of the “law against pornography”, better known as the Undang-undang Pornografi. They claim that the new norm, under consideration in parliament, which has been asked to decide whether to approve it by September 23, brings “national unity” into serious danger, and wipes out “cultural and religious differences” by eliminating “pluralism” and fostering “social discord”. But what is most worrying to the minorities and ethnic groups is the danger that the law on pornography is concealing an attempt by the more fundamentalist branch of Islam to introduce sharia, Islamic law.

* Gates of Vienna: Stop the Arabization of Indonesia

The areas in which non-Muslim ethnicities and groups are most concentrated are the eastern islands of the country, including the island of Bali, which has a Hindu majority; the Sulawesi, which have a Protestant and Catholic majority; the Moluccas, which are also equally divided between Protestants and Catholics; Papua, which has a Catholic majority, as does East Nusa Tenggaral; Borneo, divided between Catholics and Protestants, and other districts of North Sumatra and West Nusa Tenggara.

The fear is that the proposed law could spread a climate of “anarchy”, because it does not define precisely what can be maintained as “contrary to morality”, and above all what are the “criteria” to be adopted in order to establish whether “a behavior or an artistic/cultural expression” should be censored. Chapter 21 of the draft law also leaves “free rein” for preventing possible immoral acts:“This is an especially dangerous point”, emphasizes Eva Kusuma Sudari of the Indonesian Democratic Struggle Party (PDIP), a nationalist group that has always opposed the law. “This allows people to be manipulated in order to promote anarchy and social conflicts in the country”, while fundamentalist Islamic groups would have free rein to destroy nightclubs or other gathering spots under the pretext of “preserving the purity of the holy month of Ramadan”.

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UK sharia courts not adopting Islamic law in its entirety — “We’re taking a bit of it, which is civil Islamic law”

Welcome to the “one-step-at-a-time” zone. More on this story. “Muslim community uses own tribunals,” from Express and Star, September 17:

Islamic tribunals have been set up in the West Midlands to resolve disputes among the Muslim community.

* Sharia

* Top ten reasons why sharia is bad for all societies

* NO to Political Islam, YES to Human Rights.

* Britain’s Sharia Courts

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Sharia Courts operating in Britain

Melanie Philips:

Confusion abounds over the claim in the Sunday Times that Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain with the government quietly giving powers under the Arbitration Acts to sharia courts to enforce their decisions. The story quoted Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, and who said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996:

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